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Cass closed his eyes and let all the feelings settle in his chest. Mostly, there was some strong swell of contentment, maybe. Contentment and hope. Both things he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not that he expected everything to be magically better tomorrow—to see his mom feeling well and his dad rested and relaxed. But his dad’s support had maybe been exactly what he’d needed.

He blinked his eyes open and pulled his phone out of his pocket. 11:03 p.m. An early night for him, if he could manage to get right to sleep. He let out a sharp breath, stuffed his phone back in his pocket, and turned to the sink to finish loading the dishwasher. Then, he shut off all the lights and headed down the hallway to his bedroom.

Shaina (Wednesday, December 8, 2021 – 2:13 p.m.): Mom just bought my plane ticket. Flight gets in Saturday morning at 9:30, and I’ll catch a Lyft from the airport to your place, so don’t even worry

Shaina (2:16 p.m.): And don’t get all crazy and feel like you have to unload EVERYTHING from the trailer by yourself! WAIT FOR ME!

Shaina (3:36 p.m.): That storm looks kinda bad, but they’re saying it’s supposed to dump the most snow in NorCal Thursday night? So you should be well into Oregon by then? Promise me you’ll be careful. And give Bri a kiss for me. You’re going to be fine. Love you and see you on Saturday

Chapter Three

Ash

“Shh, shh, baby girl, I got you. I-I got you.” Ash rocked the fussy baby gently, holding her close to his chest. She made a few more weak sounds but didn’t start crying again, and Ash almost cried with relief himself when her eyes finally, finally drifted closed and she quieted for the first time in over an hour.

He tore his eyes away from her just long enough to glance out the window of his hotel room, and his stomach sank. A thick blanket of white coated the parking lot, and large, fluffy flakes fell from the dark sky, showing no signs of stopping.

Shaina had been wrong. In fact, every single forecast he’d listened to in the last three days leading up to his departure had been wrong. The storm hadn’t waited for Thursday night. It had hit early Wednesday afternoon. Early and hard.

Ash took a deep breath to try to calm himself as he turned away from the window. His eyes immediately fell on the small flatscreen TV on the dresser across from the single king bed. The news played quietly, and he resumed his slow pacing back and forth in the room, rocking Bri gently, while he watched the disaster playing out on the news.

Interstate 5 was shut down from his location at the south end of Redding all the way up through Yreka. Several multivehicle pileups, including one involving a semitruck that had jackknifed and slid right off the roadway, were still in the process of being cleared, and Caltrans had shut down traffic in both directions. No one was being allowed through, even with winter tires or chains—neither of which Ash had anyway.

When they started speculating about how long the closure might be, Ash felt his heart start to beat faster again. He closed his eyes and walked back toward the window. He didn’t want to hear it. They’d probably be wrong anyway. Things would be fine in the morning. They’d get those big plows to clear the highway—it was I-5, after all; they had to keep it clear, right?—and it would be reopened by the time he woke up in the morning.

Then, he and Bri could be on the next leg of their trip, make it through the Siskiyous, and reach Portland by late afternoon. He’d be home Friday, Shaina would fly in Saturday to help him get Bri settled and unpack all of Ashlynn’s and Bri’s things, and he’d somehow find the time to cram for his final exams, which were Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday next week. It would be fine.

“Snowfall is expected to continue throughout the night, and accumulation of another ten to twelve inches is possible. This is truly a treacherous storm and—”

Ash’s stomach churned again as he spun around—maybe a bit too quickly—grabbed the remote control from the bed, and hit the mute button, cutting off the voice of the news anchor. His eyes darted down to the baby in his arms. Bri gurgled quietly but didn’t stir, and Ash sucked in a sharp breath and watched her sleep for several long seconds before he moved back over toward the armchair in the corner of the room and sat.

Cradling Bri carefully in one arm, he leaned forward slightly to pull his cell phone out of his pocket. The screen immediately lit up with notifications—too many to even count. Texts and missed calls from Shaina and Henry and his friend Grant, emails from his professors, social media notifications asking him to check in and mark himself as safe, National Weather Service warnings for the winter storm.

A sudden feeling of lightheadedness overwhelmed him, and he set his phone down on the nightstand next to him and then closed his eyes and took slow, deep breaths.

He should call Shaina back. If nothing else. It was nearly midnight now, but she’d still be up. She had her last final exam in the morning—biochemistry, maybe—and she’d be studying hard. And worried about him and Bri.

With a long sigh that he kept as quiet as possible, Ash pushed himself back to his feet, holding Bri against his chest. He stared down at her for a second, and a now-familiar ache and sadness filled him. She was beautiful. And this was so incredibly hard. Before he could stop it, the ache and sadness seemed to balloon into much more intense emotions—guilt and grief and doubt. He wasn’t ready for this—his first night alone with Bri. He was still just a stupid kid. Just twenty years old—not old enough to drink, but apparently old enough to be his niece’s legal guardian. Pain shot through him again, and he almost had to sit back down.

Almost.

He held himself still for another moment, closed his eyes, and let out a shuddering breath. He didn’t have room to have these emotions right now. Not doubt. Not that deep, deep despair that he could feel hiding out inside him, pushing against him with a dark loneliness he’d never really known before. No, he didn’t have room for that right now, right here, when he needed to be present.

He pushed all his pain and grief down and moved the few feet to the bed, where he’d set up the small travel bassinet Joanna had bought for him the day before. Then he bit his lip as he very, very slowly lowered the sleeping baby down into the bassinet.

“She likes when you hum to her. But really softly. And if she starts to get fussy, sometimes—not all the time, but sometimes—if you put your hand right here, on her chest, it’ll calm her.” Shaina’s words from his very first night in California nearly three weeks ago echoed in his mind, and Ash began humming quietly, the lyrics to “You Are My Sunshine” swirling around in his head.

No crying. He would not cry. He couldn’t cry more.

Telling himself that didn’t stop the tears from coming, though, as the meaning of the lyrics—simple as they were—brought the grief right back again.

Thankfully, Bri settled into the bassinet and didn’t move, her eyes still closed lightly and her chubby pink cheeks occasionally plumping as she half-suckled in her sleep.

He watched her for a couple of minutes, trying to pull himself together. But it wasn’t going to happen. He was so tired. So spent. So terrified and sad and—

His cell phone vibrated from the nightstand, its buzz startling him just enough that he flinched. He held back a curse and glanced toward the phone. Shaina’s name was lit up on the display, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief as he moved to the nightstand and picked up the phone. Bri still hadn’t moved, though he took a second to watch her chest rise and fall rhythmically. Then he slowly lowered himself into the armchair again as he swiped up to answer and lifted the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Shai,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.